The FCC is taking comments on a request from hotel chains to kill hotspots.

Share this story

Google, Microsoft, and Wireless Industry trade groups are banding together to tell the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) that hotels shouldn’t be allowed to block guests’ personal hotspots while they stay at a hotel.

In October, Marriott Hotel Services came to a $600,000 settlement with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over allegations that the hotel chain blocked Wi-Fi signals from guests’ hotspots, forcing them to use the chain’s custom networks, which ran between $250 to $1,000 per access point. Although Marriott paid its fine, it remained defiant, arguing that it was only trying to provide the best service to its customers.

The association continued, noting that the tools it used to block guests’ Wi-Fi signals were FCC-approved. "Although the capabilities of such equipment vary, they generally include the ability to monitor and mitigate unauthorized access points that pose a threat to the security or reliability of the network. The use of such equipment for these purposes should be encouraged, not prohibited. Indeed, as explained below, guidelines developed by the credit card industry require that providers utilize monitoring and mitigation technologies to ensure a safe environment in which to process credit card transactions.”

But Microsoft and Google are arguing that hotels need not block other Wi-Fi signals in order to keep their own networks safe, and Wi-Fi, as an unlicensed band of spectrum, ought not to be monopolized by a single network. “[T]he Hotel Industry Interests’ argument conflates the hotels’ management of their own networks with the hotels’ attempt to effectively enclose the unlicensed spectrum around its facilities against other authorized Part 15 devices,” Microsoft wrote in its petition. Microsoft agrees that Wi-Fi network operators should be permitted to use FCC-authorized equipment to monitor their own networks. However, a Wi-Fi hotspot generated by a consumer’s mobile phone is not part of the hotel’s network and is also authorized to operate in the unlicensed spectrum.”

“Allowing hotels or other property owners deliberately to block third parties’ access to Wi-Fi signals would undermine the public interest benefits of unlicensed use,” Google wrote in a filing this week echoing Microsoft's sentiments.

The FCC is still taking public comments and has not made a ruling on the situation yet.